


The Mirror

by Solace (PenelopeGrace)



Category: Harry Potter - J. K. Rowling
Genre: F/M, Goddess!Hermione Granger, Mirror Sex, Priest!Tom Riddle, Smut, ish, still a little weird, this is kind of a bastardization (is that word) of greek mythology, weird myth-like story, with a mild dash of smut
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-08-29
Updated: 2018-08-29
Packaged: 2019-07-04 03:47:24
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 6,115
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/15833124
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/PenelopeGrace/pseuds/Solace
Summary: He's been looking for the goddess Hermione for a long time.





	The Mirror

**Author's Note:**

> A/N: I got no words for this. To be honest. Really have no fucking words for this. Time this takes place? No time. Just timeless, lol.
> 
> Do I sound insane yet?

 

_I._

He knows about all of the gods. The gods.

The mighty Pantheon.

Rowena of Ravenclaw, the goddess of wisdom, intelligence, and games with a subdomain of war. She shares that domain with Godric, the god of warriors, weapons, and victories. There is also Helga, the goddess of hearth, family, and marriage. And there is Salazar. Tom himself is a priest of Salazar, the god of snakes, deceit, and kings.

A long time ago, a snake told him that he was Salazar's own. It seemed impossible, because why a poor, orphaned boy with nothing but a nameless headstone for a mother could be of the great god Salazar, whose very whispers have torn apart kingdoms, sent the wisest of philosophers into bouts of insanity, tricked the most intelligent of men with their own greed? After the sign, the local priests of Slytherin took the young boy in.

Tom Riddle is a perfect priest to all eyes.

By day, he let the people confess their darkest, deepest desires to him. All the secrets, the plots, the ideas. The thoughts that would make a good man bereft of a quiet night of sleep. They dream of so much blood that the rivers would flow a permanent red and taste of stained iron and pain.

He is not a good man. He, too, dreams of blood.

By night, he does not lack for sleep. He quickly examines the books, the scrolls, the endless amount of information in the church's libraries. What he does not find, he requests from other church branches. At first, he studies his noble forefather, the great Salazar from Slytherin. But it is only a mention of the other gods that pique his interest.

Rowena, Godric, Salazar, and Helga. The four major gods of the Pantheon. The strongest four, in fact. Or rather, the strongest four as thought by the priests of the past, present, and future.

Tom knows they're wrong. They're not the strongest four.

_II._

_He sees the mirror. Examines the frame, the odd ancient runic markings engraved there. The priestess behind him has disappeared into the shadows, leaving him alone in the cold basement of the run-down church proudly standing over the edge of a cliff._

_III._

Albus, the god of death. He is far stronger than the four. He would be lying if the god of death didn't hold his attentions for many months of academic studying. But he discovers that the god of death is nothing more than a grand-chessmaster, who is capable of snipping away even the more elusive of mortals. He does not like to be cheated.

In fact, he would wait hundreds of years to seek the souls of those who flew from death's cold grasp.

Tom plans to evade the god of death for millions more.

_IV._

_He gazes into the mirror. One blink._

_Then another._

_And another._

_The torch on the walls are perfectly reflected in the mirror. The details of the goddess' statue standing at the entrance and exit of the basement seems to shine dimly, grey shadows dancing around her in reverence._

_But something is missing._

_It only takes seven seconds to realize what._

_Tom's own reflection._

_V._

He has gone through hundreds of myths, heard thousands of voices, and traveled millions of miles across the earth. A pilgrimage is what the other priests call it.

A search for answers is what Tom thought. A cure for death.

The Pantheon of gods possess hundreds of names. Lesser gods, stronger gods. But nevertheless, Albus eventually captures the mortals they squire away, the nymphs they hid from the god of death, and the lives they sought to preserve.

All weak, except for the god of death.

In the little abandoned cottage by a deserted road, Tom's hand shakes furiously as he palms his forehead and runs his fingers through his hair. He could feel the breath of the god of death chilling his shoulder despite the humidity and heat.

He looks at his bag. At the scroll he has not yet opened. The priesthood of Salazar would horrified to hear that he has stolen the scroll from the sacred libraries of Rowena in the very hearth of Ravenclaw. But he can hardly care. A hundred years, and their protests would be nothing but dust to his ears.

He wants to see this last myth. The myth of the two children abandoned to their deaths at the edge of a magical forest. He needs to know if there is an answer.

_VI._

_He stares at the mirror for hours. Until dawn arrived, and the priestess with her wide eyes and careful hand refreshes the torches with new fuel. "You are still here?" she asks, though clearly not expecting an answer. "Not many can withstand Her mirror."_

" _What is it?" he whispers, his hand on the point of touching the mirror's face. But he can feel the magic beneath its reflective surface. He does not know what it does._

_The priestess doesn't answer, rearranging the ends of her long white sleeves. She folds her hands across her stomach, the canton of oil swinging gently in front of her._

_He can see the priestess so clearly. She looks tangible, alive. . . The furthest thing from death and decay._

_Unlike himself._

_He can see nothing._

" _I was drawn to here because of your goddess," he says, his voice echoing deep into darkness. "Every god has a special object. A sort of object that contains part of their power. Salazar has his locket, which allows the wearer to influence the listener's thoughts. Helga's cup allows the drinker to have any drink of their wish and can heal the most lethal diseases of men. Godric's sword gives the wielder an smidge of the god's war power. Rowena's diadem grants the dimest of men wisdom."_

 _He pauses, his eye drawn to the quiet priestess standing at the foot of the goddess' statue. Without hearing even a breath from the woman, he continues, "There is a forgotten myth about two children and a mirror. A cursed mirror._  The two babes were children of a weak queen, and their birth was because of her rape. She sent her men to abandon them at the edge of a terrible forest. But the twins were lucky. A local farmer took pity on them and raised the boys as his own _._

When the boys became men, a Wise Woman walked to their cottage. She foretold one would suffer a deathless life. The other would build a new city and die at his own reflection _," he recalls. "_ The younger twin slew his own brother by locking him into a container and sending him to sea. He went on to build the ancient city of Hogwarts, hiding himself away from all mirrors, lakes, ponds, and glass."

_VII._

_The older brother did not die. He freed himself from the container for three days before finding an unfamiliar shore. The end of the world, the older brother thought._

Tom pushed the scroll flatter, trying to make out the ancient hieroglyphics a few lines above. He pauses poignantly at one word: deathless.

_After days of wandering, he finally stumbled across a gloomy church. The priestess of the goddess welcomed him with open arms, a lovely feast, and strong spirits._

_VIII._

_The priestess hardly blinks at the story. She only says, "Come with me. I have spirits and a feast, priest." She beckoned him up the stairs and away from the mirror._

_He glanced back at the mirror, wondering if he could find his answer._

_IX._

_The priestess was beautiful with her long wild hair and dark eyes. Her long white robes danced, touched by playful fingertips of the wind. The goddess only possessed one priestess and one sacred temple. She guarded her prized treasure within its heart: the mirror. The priestess was her last line of defense and the mirror's guardian._

A priestess with white robes. Tom thinks of all the priest and priestess, nuns and pastors he had seen over his search. He has never seen one wearing white before.

_The older twin was enchanted by the priestess. He whispered sweet nothings into her ear, tempting her with the taste of the flesh._

_The priestess refused his advances, only smiling in amusement. She took him down into the heart of the temple to see the mirror._

_Only torchlight could be seen in the darkness. And the tall, shiny mirror standing in the center of the room. The priestess asked him, "What do you see?"_

_X._

" _What did you see?" she asks, leading him to the warm kitchen. Many plates of food Tom did not recognize or know sit waiting on the table. He pulls the head chair out for the priestess and then positions himself to her left._

"The older twin was himself as he is, unafraid of his own reflection. The priestess stood a little behind him, waiting for his answer. He truthfully told the priestess what he saw. Then the priestess walked down the stairs and asked him what he sees of her in the mirror _," he recites, waiting for the priestess to break bread first._

" _That is what the twin in myth says. Not you." A pause. "Tell me."_

_He doesn't answer. "What does the mirror do?"_

_She smirks. "If you read the story, you would already know."_

_XI._

_The priestess looked so beautiful in her reflection. There was a touch of the divine in her, the twin thought. "What is this?"_

" _A magical mirror infused with the goddess' power."_

" _What is her power?"_

Tom's breath slows. What is indeed this mysterious power of a nameless goddess? What can it be? Could it be the one power missing from the Pantheon? The one who is the opposite of death in every way.

_The priestess shrugged, her hands clasping together in front of her. She tilted her head this way and that._

" _Priestess?"_

" _You know what it is, young prince," said the priestess._

_It was the only answer he got from her._

_XII._

" _How are you a priestess? This is a remote area," notes Tom. "Not easy to gain a replacement priestess when you die."_

_The priestess does not seem to worry about her death._

" _The nearest village is twenty-five miles away, yes. Quite remote here." Her dark brown eyes flicker over him, her hand poised carefully over the teapot. "The goddess chooses her priestess. Not like how the other gods washed their hands of their temples."_

" _Gods gain power from worship. Letting humans spread the temples and the stories kept them alive. Your goddess has lesser power gained from humanity."_

_The priestess tilts her head. "But does the god of death possess temples?"_

_No. He does not._

_Tom can see where this is going._

" _You see? That is a more powerful god without any worshippers. My goddess is like the god of death. Every human being may not believe in the god, but they all recognize death and know him intimately. Fear him. Such is the way of the god of death."_

" _What is her power? The goddess who is like death?"_

_The priestess tilts her head, her eyes seemingly glimmering in the dimming sunlight. "The goddess is what she is. There is no better answer, young priest."_

_Tom blinks. Young? Tom is nearly twenty-seven years old. The priestess hardly looks like she is even in her twenties. She stands up, the ends of her robes brushing across the table. The light gold sashes curl around her soft curves, pulling her robes tighter against her skin._

" _Come. I'll show you to your room. Unless you choose to remain with the mirror." She turns away from Tom, walking slowly down the halls._

"The twin asked the priestess of its magical powers and questioned if the prophecy made by the Wise Woman years ago was true. The priestess said it was so and whispered a terrible secret into the abandoned prince's ear."

" _This is your room, Tom. But only if you choose to stay here instead of the mirror chamber." She gestures at the minimalist bedroom with a simple bed and desk. She glides past Tom. The hems of her long white robes drag behind her._

 _A pale hand snakes out and seizes her by the wrist, and Tom maneuvers himself over her shoulder, his mouth a mere inch away from her ear. The priestess is only a few inches shorter, her back arched against him. He whispers, "_ The prince asked if the mirror was a weapon. The priestess told him that Fate has made it so. It was his destiny to ensure his brother's death."

" _And Fate came to plays us like pawns again." She spins herself out of his grasp, moving in a blur of white cloth. "You will see."_

_XIII._

_The prince wrapped the mirror in colorful paper and slowly made the journey home, the mirror carefully placed in the wagon behind him. He came to the city rumored to have been born a year ago, to where he knew his brother would be found. He had a boy deliver the mirror to the city's prince._

" _What's it for?" the boy wondered._

" _A gift for your prince. An artwork," the twin lied._

_The boy took the wagon to the city's prince._

_The mirror was opened before him, and to the people, it was the most ugly mirror. The prince's court saw themselves reflected, the veil over their eyes shedding away. Murderers, the mirror whispered. Killers._

_Then the kinslayer prince laid his eyes upon it. No one but him knew what he saw in the mirror. He went white with shock, fell over, and died. The city of his creation dived into chaos._

Tom frowns. The scroll. The myth. It is incomplete. All the other myths like Bloody Baron's lust for Rowena's daughter are complete. Their stories told and finished.

But this one is not finished at all. He could sense it in his blood.

_XIV._

_Tom stares up at the darkness. There is something innately unsettling about it, not that he would actually admit it to anyone._

_He turns to his side, and his brow furrows._

_There is a gentle, rhythmic sound, as soft as a baby's heartbeat and as quiet as the brush of the bird's beating wings. Unable to sleep, Tom finds himself stumbling out of bed. His feet moves slowly as he quietly listens, just listens._

_He circles through the hallways, presses his ears against doors and walls, yet the sound persists, not increasing in volume at all._

_Deeply unsettled, Tom goes back to bed and resolves to ask the priestess about the sound in the morning._

XV.

"You have gone farther in your research than most has ever gone, my boy," says the aging Horace Slughorn. He is one of the oldest priests in the brotherhood. "I never thought there would be an unknown goddess, but I wonder if her presence is more apparent than what we think."

"Sir?"

"We have mistaken gods for other gods, goddesses for other goddesses. We thought it was Godric who cursed the unbeatable knife of the god, Herpo the Foul. However, later research reveals that it is Albus, the god of death, who cursed the blade."

"You think I should look back into the myths I have seen before and look more closely?"

Slughorn nods, sipping at his drink. "Indeed. You have no idea what you might find."

_XVI._

" _Priestess?"_

_She stops milking the cow and gives a nod to Tom. "Good morning, young priest."_

" _I might have to call you young priestess. I am not younger than you."_

_She laughs, a dark sound that reverberates in the little barn for the animals. "Oh, Tom. You will find that you will never guess my age right. I look far younger than I actually am."_

_It is only after she disappears from his view when he realizes that he never asked her about the sound._

_XVII._

All of the myths. And all the gods and goddesses and demigod and nymphs. He carefully begin authenticating each god in their myths. The nimble nymph, the apple, and Godric. The infinite library, the thief, and Rowena.

The myths continue and the candlesticks melt down over the many nights out of the many months out of the two years Tom worked. The priests admire him for his strong work ethic, but Tom does not hear a whisper of the praise.

It does not matter to him anymore.

For certain, there are six myths where the goddess was unspecified or simply did not make sense. For example, in the story of the birth of the world, the creation story, in fact, Helga gave fire to rocks and life to the world. But it could not be Helga, because according to Helga's origins myth, she was born from a tree of a thriving garden.

So who could that god or goddess be?

In another story, a man murdered his wife and three children. His wife's brother sought for revenge, but the man was protected by Herpo and Albus, the most heinous divine alliance ever. However, a goddess gave the brother three arrows and instructed him to never miss nor to touch the poisoned tips. The brother first shot the god of death then the god of murderers. And finally, he took vengeance for his family. The goddess was never specified, no name ever given.

Which goddess could ever defy the two dark gods?

Another place, another time. A warring general was kidnapped by Godric in an attempt to free the princess, because Godric was infatuated with her. The princess demanded he kill her enemy as proof of his love. About to slit his throat and break divine law, a goddess materialize before them. She sends away the mortals and proceeds to punish Godric by throwing him to burn and heal, burn and heal in the pits of eternal flames.

On a separate sheet of paper, Tom writes: Life? Vengeance? Or justice?

The fourth myth involved a fight between Rowena and Salazar. Battling to death, the two gods fought day and night while the land was destroyed before them. Countless mortals died and more lost forever by the storms. A ray of light stepped between their swords. Dressed in white robes, the same standard robes her priestess wears, the goddess commanded both to stand down. Instead of a war between gods, the goddess created an annual competition to satisfy their dispute.

Another myth is where Salazar tried to steal souls from the god of death for some ridiculous ritual. He was successful in stealing them while tying Albus in a certain unknown part of the Underworld. In his haste to escape the land of the dead, he left the Gates of Dead open and the dead souls came flooding back to life. A goddess retrieved Albus from where Salazar left him, and together, the two dragged back the dead from the living.

And of course, the seventh story. The myth of the twins, the priestess, and the mirror of the unnamed goddess.

In three of the seven, the goddess was unnamed. The rest were named to be some other goddess like Rowena or Helga or even Helena. But Helena is far too weak to be able to do the many things the goddess has done in two of the myths. Helga is not as old as the creation myth thought she would be. And Rowena could be clever enough to come up with poisoned arrows, but she has no motive in acting against Albus, one of her most beloved friends.

The only way for Tom to know for sure is to ask a god. Or a goddess.

It's a good thing the Sacred Grounds of Helena is a week's journey away.

_XVIII._

_The sound persists, rising and falling. Tom grimaces in frustration. He throws off the sheets and absconds into the mirror room._

_His reflection, once again, is absent._

_But the sound is gone._

" _You can waste away in front of the mirror. I know the mirror's potential. And I have looked upon it many times, many moments, more nights." The priestess, still dressed in her white robes, steps out of the shadows._

_He glances at her. "Despite you knowing about the mirror's ability to destroy, you still look upon it anyway."_

" _I have mastered the mirror."_

_He examines her in the mirror. Then he uses his own eyes. Perhaps, mayhaps. He slowly walks to her, noting how she doesn't move away from fright or instinct. Curious._

_Instead, he sees steady amusement._

_He reaches out for her, carefully and considerately. Giving her enough time to move away on her own accord. She doesn't. Instead, she meets him eye to eye, her eyebrow raised as if daring him to actually touch her. His hand tugs on her gold rope that bounds her robes. He maneuvers them closer and closer the mirror as he presses behind her._

" _What do you see?" He asks, his fingers quickly working on her front knot. He slowly watches the rope, warm and soft to the touch, unbind itself from her waist. It slips to the floor, and her white robes loosen. Skin reveals itself starting from the parting of clothes at her throat._

" _Many things. Where to even begin?"_

_Her robes fall, pooling around her pale legs. She is bare before him, her skin smooth and her eyes lidded, and his mouth suddenly dries. Enchanted, he watches his own hand slip to her navel and circles it once. Then once again. He openly wonders, "Does your goddess require a vow of chastity?"_

_In a similar manner despite being very naked, she taunts back, "Does yours?"_

" _Salazar believes if there is something to accomplish, all rules can be broken." He slides his hand to her hip, carefully examining her expressions. Her eyes glitter with amusement._

_He wants her to be on the edge. He wants her to scream for mercy, lose her cool composure, and beg for more. He wants to know her secrets, know her every curve and nooks, and know her at the deepest, primal level._

_Own her forever._

" _Do not quote the_ Book of the Gods  _to me." She adds, "We all know there is no divine words in there but the lies of men."_

" _There is always a grain of truth in lies." His hand circles around her sex and his eyes watch her quirk an eyebrow at him, as if challenging him to push this thing even further._

_She is far too smug._

" _Once upon a time, perhaps. Not anymore." She yelps as he not-so-gently tugs at her delicate up-do that spills her hair over the nape. He nibbles at her exposed throat, smiling at her surprised gasp._

_He tugs at the peaks of her breast, watching them harden in the mirror. There is something strangely arousing about only seeing her in the mirror. He marvels at the way she arches, the way she moves, the way her eyes roll back as he pinches hard at her nipple. She seems to float in the air on her own accord._

_She pushes herself further into his hand as he gently rubs her wet cunt. He whispers into her throat, "Here I thought priestesses aren't supposed to be selfish."_

_Quickly, she quips back, far too composed for his liking, "You assume too much."_

_He pushes her to the marble floor, sinking down behind her. Lifting her onto his lap, he spreads her legs and caress the curve of her hips. She purrs at his soft brushes, goosebumps forming on her arm._

" _Look," he whispers. "Look at how you arch at my touch. Look at your desire. Look." He dips into her cunt, pulling out glistening fingers._

_She flips herself on him, straddling his thighs with self-assurance despite her nudity. Her robes have slipped off completely, and she hovers over him as she slowly unravels his clothing. He is frozen, absolutely entranced by every single move and touch and breath she makes._

" _Oh, Tom," she purrs, her lips brushing the soft flesh of his throat. His trousers quickly are removed under her deft fingers. He has no idea how she did it, only that her taking control is driving him_ mad _. "You really don't know what you are getting into."_

_The challenge in her voice is unmistakable. He growls, pushing her against the hard, smooth floors. In the mirror, he can only see her—gloriously naked as she twists and bends at seemingly nothing. His inability to see his own reflection has done wonders to his blood as he sees her rising again to sit on seemingly thin air. She floats as she gently angles his member into her entrance._

_She rides him, eyes lidded as she sees him in the mirror. He marvels at the way her breasts bounce, fiercely following her movements. She holds him in her grasp, in the palm of her hand. Despite him gripping her hips, she controls the pacing._

_He does not like it._

_He doesn't—_

" _Salazar," he pants, gasping as she cruelly pauses. Her fingernail claws at his shoulder, drawing scars, he's sure. It's absolutely carnal, it's absolutely sacrilegious to do this in a goddess' temple, no less, but he can't_ fucking  _resists her._

" _By the end, you will be praising my goddess," says the priestess, somehow still able to think—to put together a sentence. She arches up, nearly lifting herself off his cock. Her wild hair smells like the sweetest of flowers, and something else he can't place. He looks in the mirror, and he loses his mind._

_He looks at her hole, at the way it clenches around his cock, but in the mirror, it gapes, opening and closing around thin air. And he swears that he is on the brink of—_

" _Fuck," he hisses, his hands tighten around her. Can she feel how close he is?_

" _Swear to the goddess Hermione." Then she moves again._

"Hermione,"  _he breathes as he spills his seed inside the priestess. Her name feels like a prayer._

_The priestess shakes in her own pleasure, slipping off him. She walks to her robes and slips them out with ease while Tom lays shattered on the floor._

" _You're not a priestess."_

_And with those words, it is like a piece of film has melted away._

_Finally, he can_ see.

_XIX._

Helena is not the easiest goddess to find. No, the easiest is definitely Godric. A simple insult against him would draw him out but also forfeit a life. A black-haired priest with an abnormally large hooked nose stands guard at the entrance to the Sacred Grounds. His robes identify him as a priest from the Order of Princes.

Severus, the god of potions, witches, magic, and espionage, leads the Order of Princes with a divine hand. He is indeed part of the Pantheon but consider a lesser god compared to the major four.

The priest steps right into Tom's path. In a deep, baritone, he asks, "Tell me, priest of Salazar. What do you seek?"

"The knowledge of the goddess Helena, daughter of the wise Rowena," he replies.

The other priest moves away, gesturing into the garden. "Good luck finding the goddess, young priest." A pause. "And Rowena, who has been considered wise by all, never considered herself wise when it comes to Helena."

Tom, quickly turning back to look at the priest in surprise, finds him missing.

_XX._

_Numbly, he follows the goddess up the stairs with only trousers on. How could he have missed it before? When his reflection finally appeared in the mirror and he looked at her, he knew. He sees the touch of divinity, can feel the taste of life he felt in Helena's presence but multiplied tenfold, a thousandfold._

" _Let me show you something." She is once again dressed in the clothes of her priestess. The robes look like a beautiful lie._

_He could not protest against her will._

_XXI._

"Severus approves of you," the young woman underneath the tree says. She picks gently at the rose bush besides her. "He doesn't approve of many."

"I need to ask you about something, my lady."

She gazes straight into Tom's eye. "I see. And to answer your question, I did not go into the Underworld to rescue Albus when Salazar imprisoned him."

"Then which goddess did that?"

"Hermione. The goddess named Hermione."

"What is she goddess of?"

Helena gives him a tiny smile. "Wouldn't we all want to know?"

_XXII._

_She turns this way and then that until she teaches a door Tom has never seen before. She holds out her hand and then runs her hand down parallel to the door. Locks click themselves open, and then the door swings itself open._

_The sound is louder now._

_Inside, there is a body. He is covered with a thin blanket. Tom's feet unwillingly shuffles closer and closer. Then he can see the face of an old man, his mouth parted as he breathes in and out as gently as a bird's pounding wing. He is nearly a skeleton with thin, blue veins popping out of this leathery skin._

" _You see?" The goddess presses her fingers against the wrinkled forehead. "Behold the deathless twin."_

_XXIII._

"I don't understand, Lady Helena."

"The gods don't either."

_XXIV._

" _You are Hermione."_

" _Yes."_

" _What are you goddess of?"_

" _Everything and nothing."_

_XXV._

"She is more powerful than most gods?"

"No. There is no god or goddess who can match her power. She is beyond all of us."

_XXVI._

" _I don't understand."_

" _I am the goddess of balance. And you are here to finish the myth." She holds out a bronze knife to him and gesture to deathless twin. "Now it's your turn."_

" _What does killing him do?"_

" _It satisfies Albus." A pause. "He has been searching his soul for so long. You will release his soul with a tiny cut."_

_Tom grasps the handle and stare down at the deathless twin. He is deeply unnerved at how a man could be alive. A part of him knows it's wrong for this man to be still alive._

_He spins around and stabs the priestess, the goddess, in her chest. Gold ichor spills onto her robes as he backs away in surprise. She merely raises an eyebrow at him in annoyance, not bothering to remove the knife._

" _That's not nice, Tom."_

_The world spins around them, and then Tom and the goddess are standing in front of the mirror once again. The deathless twin floats behind them, his reflection only of a contained white glow. The goddess is not bleeding in her reflection yet when he looks directly at her, the goddess slowly bleeds gold around the knife. And there is the reflection of himself._

" _He is not meant to live this long. Any longer, and his skin will begin to be eaten away yet he would still breathe. His soul can't find peace. This is the true reality of immortality for mortals."_

_Tom reaches into his pocket. In front of the mirror, he watches himself as he places a silver locket. He removes a tiny cup and a glowing dark stone. He reaches into his pocket again, retrieving other objects imbued with their god's power._

" _What is your power? What is your domain? What is balance?"_

" _Balance is irony. Balance is justice. It is in matching the power of a death god whose hunger was greater than the world. He sought to eat everything. I gave him a creation of beings to kill and divine laws to follow. I punished Salazar and Godric when they broke the divine laws. I fixed what is unbalanced and make it right."_

" _Then you know what I seek."_

" _I do."_

" _Then what would you do?"_

" _In your hunt for immortality, you will bring about great darkness. Which will be responded by light."_

" _Darkness. Light. All I care about is the end result."_

" _You can take his spot if you want immortality." She points to the deathless twin._

" _What is immortality without youth? Nothing. Better off dead." He pauses, as if to think. But he has planned this a long, long time ago. Ever since he read the story about the god of mercy, Harry, who was orphaned at a young age and was granted godhood upon eating the fruit of eternal life._

_He sinks down to his knees, his eyes glancing at her feet. "I do not seek immortality for mortals. I seek to be an immortal god." He gestures to the priceless carriers of the gods' power. "I bring you these as offerings for potential godhood."_

_She raises an eyebrow. "Well, most of them are stolen. Or cursed. Or greatly cursed." She stops at the diadem. "Or both stolen and cursed."_

_She pauses in front of a ring glimmering innocently before her feet. "You know what this is?" The ring flies to her hand._

" _The artifact belonging to Albus."_

_She nods at him. "You have studied the gods well, Tom. Have you used the stone before?"_

_He shakes his head. He would carry the ring and the stone safely, but he would never activate it. It seems too. . . Dangerous in his eyes. Like calling upon the god of death to collect his soul._

" _Upon activating it, you see all the faces of those who died and were significant to you. The ones who come forward are always those who are most likely able to draw your death." She turns away from him, her robes tangling up on the floor._

" _I read about it."_

_She sends the ring flying back to Tom. "I don't know how you plan to convince me to make you a god."_

_He tightens his hand around the last object in his pocket. Either this will work or it wouldn't. The worst she can do is send him straight to Albus, he knows._

_The very best. . ._

_He places the fruit of eternal life in front of her feet. It's a simple pomegranate with skin as dark as fresh blood. Mortal blood. He kneels before the goddess, his head bowed in submission. "Then I ask for your blessing."_

_Eating the fruit would grant him godhood. He is certain of that. But it would be the life of a minor god who has to survive on worshippers to live. He would hate to have to survive on scared and hungry humans he has met throughout his life. The regular, everyday ones, that is. The priests and priestess are far more dedicated to their daily worshipping._

" _You wish to be better than a lower god."_

" _I wish to be a god outside of worship. A god who does not need temples, churches, and sacrifices," he says, his face subdue._

_He feels the nails of her fingers on his chin, forcing him to look at her. "What domain do you have in mind?"_

_He can't resist the smile when he answers. "Chaos."_

_She darkly laughs, "You seek to balance me." She turns away from him, stepping in front of the mirror. Her hand presses against the glass as she watches his reflection. His muscular back, his still submissive position is reflected in the mirror. She can't see his face. "We'll see if you can handle that."_

_Tom resists a smirk._

_She stands straight in front of him, her golden eyes shining as she slowly pulls the knife out of her chest. She lowers herself and holds the knife in front of Tom._

_Tom's heart skips a beat. Whether from anxiety or from excitement, he can't be sure. Her hand moves closer and closer to Tom's face until the blade is nearly pressed against his lips._

" _Clean the blade."_

_He does not need extra clarification. A tongue comes out and licks the blade's face. Her gold ichor is sweet and sticky, the kind of substance that clings to his tongue. A sharp sting sends red blood dripping from his tongue._

_She pulls the knife back and sets it on the floor while Tom sucks at the cut, desperately trying not to reel from the pain._

_She takes the pomegranate from his hand and splits it open with ease. A seed pops into her mouth, and she sits down, her legs underneath her bum. She kisses him, passing a seed between his lips. He bites on the seed and swallows it down, the seed tasting better than anything he has ever ate. His own blood and the taste of her blood mixes with the juice._

_She goes back to the pomegranate, holding another seed between her teeth. He does not miss the dark red blood on her bright white teeth turning lighter. Like gold._

_He swallows once again._

_It tastes like_ life.

_And power._


End file.
